I started to not post the pic until tomorrow

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Chris

I'm doing paper work right now. I'll keep the problem in mind.

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The problem is the black background unfortunately.

Nice work tho

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Please support us and post a [Link to www.digitalartsfront.com] on your website.

Try making the black plane not visible in reflection refraction and use a brighter HDR map in the environment

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x2

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Under "environment" add a dark gradient.

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Oh and your skull looks very nice! I like where you're going with it.

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Thanks, I see what you guys mean about the background.
I'll work on that.
How can I get the skull material to have sort of a volume inside the skull, like imperfections or grain and still have a smooth surface outside?
I just started messing around with Arch+Design materials. Anybody use those much?

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Chris

I think you'll have to model that in detail in. Nothing to drastic, probably just some stretched spheres should do it. Maybe.

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

Ahh, I never considered modeling some grain or whatever, I'll see how that works. I did use ProCutter but that just made it look broke.

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Chris

I havent used arch design materials before but the best way to create semi transparent materials is to use glossy refraction in either maxwell or vray. I'm guessing you like the way mental ray handles caustics so maybe you could do a render pass with another renderer and comp it onto the mental ray render in post.

Maxwell does those effects so well its almost scary. with vray you would map the refraction glossyness with some scratches or something and crank up the subdivs to 50.

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Yeah, I like mental ray for a several reasons, I just wanted to see what all I could do with arch design mats.

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Chris

Image one is with noise in the refraction glossiness slot. I think with the right map/amount that would work.

Image two I put some noise in the translucency weight slot.
Both images have modeled things floating about inside the skull.

I think I need a combination of both.

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Chris

Yeh, I think image2 looks better, but it's not quite perfect as you say. I don't think anyone has mentioned it, but the pedestal looks great.

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

Thanks, I'm thinking of adding some little shoots of grass or other plant life growing in the cracks of the pedestal.
I might break out the old ivy generator and see what that does. I had problems the last time I used it, so I may be asking for some help with that.

Image one looks like cheap glass doesn't it?

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Chris

Image 2 is working well, I think it would look cool if the reflections were slightly glossy in places too like it was a little bit dusty or scratched. plus maybe adding another light that kicks it up on the left of the image would improve the solid look of the object.

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"I think I need a combination of both."
Is this for an animation?

You could add add dust particles to the top of the model using "falloff".

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Where would I put falloff? explain.

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Chris

I think you're using arch+design for mental ray, so that's what I used.
Diffuse Level> Falloff (type:Towards /away. Direction: WorldZ-Axis. Then i had to adjust the MIX Curve)>Cellular(For the dust particles).

Reflection Level> Same falloff settings, but black and white to act as a mask.

Refraction Level> Same falloff settings, but black and white to act as a mask.

Hope that helps!

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Oh, in answer to you're question, I wasn't planing on making an animation, but I might since you mentioned it, maybe some sort of lighting effect?

I'll try playing with falloff and see what I get.
How would you make the surface more, I don't know, how you say, scratchy? Not really scratchy but silky spider webby specularish anisotropic type sheen and still maintain the smooth surface.
That make sense?

Thanks

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Chris

To have the dust seem more, "web like"? So that it appears that cobwebs are stuck to parts of it?

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No, not actual webs, that would be cool though.
I'm referring to the surface quality. Tiny, almost microscopic scratches.

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Chris

What about drawing some 'tilable' white lines in photoshop and using that as a lite bump map?

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Can I just ask, what are the things you particularly like about mental ray as opposed to vray, brazil, maxwell etc..? Only because I'm asked alot about the pros and cons of different renderers and I haven't really pushed mental ray very far in the line of duty. I've found the caustics are very nice and simple to get working and the ambient occlusion, and skin shaders are also great in mental ray, what other features do you find work better in mental ray than other rendering solutions?.

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Your right, it needs some sort of surface quality variation or dust.

I haven't used Brazil or Maxwell.
I wish I could give you an intelligent answer on the pros and cons of v-ray vs. mental ray.
I can't say I like one better than the other. Part of why I tend to lean toward MR is comfort, that's what I started using first. As you mentioned the caustics are easier, I have a hard time with v-ray in that respect. MR's controls seem to be more responsive, for someone like me it makes trial and error easier. With MR a little change in values seems to go a long way where as with v-ray I tend to have to really jack up values to see a difference. That can suck when you don't know exactly what you're doing.

All in all there is always a trade off for me.
When I use MR, I can almost always find a place I'd like to put a v-ray light or material.
When I use v-ray, I can usually find a place for a nice simple raytraced mat or some other something that doesn't work with v-ray.

Sometimes you need a screwdriver sometimes you need a wrench.

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Chris

Mental Ray comes with max so I've become comfortable with it...

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I know a complex way to do superfine scratches using nested blend materials but its a vray thing. Maybe try The map below in your glossyness. or in the falloff map set to perpendicular parallel. Your answer to my question is certainly fair enough. i started using GI with an early version of brazil and it took me a while to get used to vray too, I know mental ray has improved alot in recent version aswell. I may have to dedicate some time to it at some point. Heres the map. It works pretty well if you tile it a bit.

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I've seen that map before...

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[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

x2 I made my post above before I saw this one. This should work.

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Back at the luny academy?

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Dude!! That map you gave me melted my skull! hahahaha

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Chris

Ah ha that's crazy!

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That was actually a crazy attempt at making a spiderweb.

I kinda fixed it, I'm still not happy!

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Chris

oh! but you can see that you're on the right path! That's looking great!

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It coming along great!

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Rick

[Link to www.3dartconcepts.com]